Details

The Zoom R16 Recorder is a multi-track digital recorder, with 8 channels of simultaneous input and up to 16 channels of simultaneous output. It records to SD card, and it can even run on battery power, making it one of the most portable music production studios available. It has a built-in stereo condenser mic so you can record anything anywhere. Enough scope to multi-track record an entire drum set, and enough tracks to make a full band studio recording (including overdubs) without even touching a computer.

It also functions as an audio-interface when used with computers, and as a control surface, making it equally useful as a studio production tool and a digital recorder for remote locations. Over a hundred built-in effects are provided to enable serious mixing potential, and pro mastering tools ensure you can make a polished mix every time. If you connect two Zoom R16s to a computer you can record 16 channels simultaneously too. It is a complete studio in a compact box. Record live gigs, rehearsals, studio tracks and more with this amazing piece of kit. Every band should have one.

Included with the Zoom R16 Recorder is a 1GB SD Card that will get you up and running from the very start.

Posted on 10/04/2016 by tomr2002uk
I'm a guitarist and write my own music, I work offshore most of the time and wanted something small and light to travel with, this was just the job. I'm no expert on recording, I've been using Cakewalk and Cubase for nearly 20 years via an audio interface for recording my guitar tracks and found it ok but wanted to move away from computer recording as such, to be able to get tracks recorded simple and easy on the move.

More often than not, when using cubase I would create digital instrument tracks for drums, bass guitar, piano, strings etc. I would then add my analogue guitar tracks. The R16 will not allow you to import digital tracks, you have to convert the tracks to .wav files and store them on the SD card. This is not a problem, works ok for me. It's easy transfer from the SD card to a DAW such as cubase too.

The R16 was easy to use out of the box, I was up and running in no time testing it by recording tracks with the in built condensor mics. As mentioned in the other review, the manual is not the best, but once you start pressing buttons you can soon work it out. I am very impressed with how easy it is to put a song together in no time. I've tested this while jamming with a drummer (using yamaha electronic drums), another guitarist and a bassist, all recording on different inputs and it works great. I've not really played around with the in-built effects and to be honest I'm no sound engineer so I work by if it sounds ok once the sound levels are set on each input then I record it all to the master track or mixdown to one track and the results so far have been very good. I can't wait to get a singer to lay down some vocal tracks over my recordings.

I bought a 32GB SDHC card off amazon for around £10, this is more than enough capacity to record a lot of songs.

All in all this is a quality bit of kit for a small price. Hours of fun ahead!!

Posted on 09/06/2012 by Wyshwood
Out of the box the R16 is easy to set up and within minutes can be recording your band at rehearsal with the internal mics. Coupled with the ability to use this kit with your DAW as an interface (I use FL Studio and it was a breeze) makes it very economical.

I use it for location recordings. So far I've been out, recorded the group, popped the SD into the laptop and roughed up a mix in just a couple of hours. This never ceases to impress the client and at the same time leaves me loads of scope to polish the piece off. Some other bits of kit take an age and need all sorts of cosseting to make the recording useful, not the R16.

It's light, making it very portable. 24 bit quality if you need it, though it boots up in 16 bit. Up to 32GB SD card for longer recordings or sessions.

Tons of techy bits to polish off the tracks, reverb, compression etc. Admittedly they won't master to the best standard, but do a decent job for first impressions. Once you get into it the limitations are few.

As with all digital equipment, make sure your levels are good. It's easy to over saturate if you peak too much, so draw back and leave some headroom; between -12 and -6 is a safe bet for clear peak free results. Sound to noise ratio, people. It takes no time at all to perfect this for flawless tracks.

I mark it down only because of the manual. So many things these days don't have well written instructions, and whilst this one will get you through, you'll soon discover questions without answers, so you'll have to resort to the big G or YT or maybe fork out for a DVD to dig into some of the finer tips and tricks. For this money I cannot recommend it highly enough.